Turkey: Reform Package Gets Tepid Reception

A new package of democratization reforms tries to repair political damage from Turkey’s spring clashes. (Photo: Jonathan Lewis)

Turkey’s new democratization reform package may mark a step forward for civil rights, but it does not go far enough to ease social tension and feelings of mistrust that are afflicting the country, analysts say.

But after a summer during which Erdoğan’s reformist reputation was shredded by a violent police crackdown on anti-government protests, many Turks see the package mostly as an attempt to repair the prime minister’s battered image. “The fact that this is being marketed as a big reform package is precisely because the government is seeing that they are failing on that front,” said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a political columnist at Milliyet newspaper, an influential publication generally critical of the government. “It’s not enough, it’s hardly enough, but it’s a start.”